


Breathless

by ura_nium



Series: Missing in Action [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Asthma, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 21:58:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15591585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ura_nium/pseuds/ura_nium
Summary: Dick takes ill quite suddenly one night with an asthma attack.





	Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> Ages:  
> Dick > 13  
> Jason > 10  
> Tim > 8

Patrol had just ended, and he was replenishing his utility belt in the storage area when a small cough came on. He turned his head away, coughing into his sleeve, not wanting to get germs all over his stuff.

"Ack...a-choo!" the small fit ended with a whooping sneeze that echoed in the cave and made Bruce look up from his work at the computer console.

"You alright, chum?"

 "Yeah, I'm good." Dick called back, grimacing as he batted away a puff of dust in front of his face, "it's just a bit dusty in here. How long has it been since we cleaned out the stores?"

"It's been... about a month?"

"We should give it a wipe down soon," he commented as he stood up and went over to where Bruce was. He jerked a thumb behind him, "it's dusty."

Bruce nodded, turning back to his work. "Noted. Maybe you can do it tomorrow?"

A complaint automatically rose to his lips, but it was stopped by another hacking cough. He grimaced.

"Fine. But some of the stuff is really heavy, maybe..."

"You and Alfred then."

Much better. With Alfred around, things would get done faster.

"Alright. I am going off to bed, then."

Bruce spared him a glance, then reached over to muss up his dusty hair with a playful hand. Dick protested, batting his hand away. The corner of the man's lip quirked up in a small smile.

"Night, bud."

"Night, Bruce."

~

After cleaning up and changing into his nightclothes, Dick shuffled to bed, trying to clear his irritated throat. Man, that store room really needed to be cleaned out, he felt like the dust had somehow followed him up into his room. The air around him felt thick and heavy, and there was something sitting on his chest, making it a little hard to breathe.

He lay down in bed, trying to take deep, measured breaths to counter the breathlessness. But as he tried to inhale, it felt as if there was a band slowly wrapping around his ribcage, making it harder and harder to breathe. Lying down didn't help, and a telltale tickle at the back of his throat told him that another round of coughing would be coming soon.

Dick sat up again; he was still breathing a little heavily, but it felt better to sit up. Maybe it was the blankets on him, pressing down on his chest.

He started coughing again as he flipped the covers back. The rasp reached deep into his chest, sounding thick and phlegmy. That wasn't good, he thought. He hadn't coughed like that in a while, not since catching that flu that was making its rounds back in December. But it was just dust, he argued with himself as he sat there, coughing and trying to catch his breath, just harmless dust. But dust is an irritant, and irritants usually triggered...

Oh crap. Could it be...? His asthma.

No it couldn't be, He hasn't had an attack since he hit puberty at 12. The last episode he could recall happened in summer when he was 10, before Jase came into the household. It couldn't be his asthma, could it? A little dust could not have triggered this...

Still coughing, Dick slid out of bed and made a beeline for his desk, where he knew he kept his inhaler. He rooted around the drawers for a while, trying to find the shiny object; Bruce had his R&D department making these new sort of inhalers, ones that were slimmer and more compact than the more common types of inhalers. When the man had asked him if he wanted to switch his out for one of the new Wayne Industries ones, he had agreed readily, taken in by the aesthetic and the compactness of the object. Now he saw that there was a tiny flaw to the design-- the thing was too goddam small that he couldn't even find it in his own drawer.

His breaths felt tight in his chest as he continued his search for the canister. Ok, think Dick, think. The inhaler was not just smaller and thinner, it was also glow-in-the-dark blue. And if he couldn't see it anywhere in this drawer of his, that meant it just wasn't there.

How could it not be there? That was where he last put it, he remembered it clearly. If it wasn't there that means...

A groan rose to his lips as he panted. One of his brothers must have taken it, thinking it to be some kind of fancy new BatToy or something. He looked towards his door and paused for a breath. Oxygen deprivation, his brain supplied as his vision blurred slightly around the edges. He needed his inhaler, and he needed it now.

Jason. He thought as he walked towards the door, trying not to stumble. Maybe it's with Jason.

~

Jason was rudely awakened by a hand tapping his face. He swatted the offending object away, mumbling a curse and turning over in between his sheets.

"Jason," a hoarse voice rasped into his ear, "wake up."

"...m'sleepin'. Leave me 'lone."

"Jason, wake—" the voice dissolved into a series of thick coughs, coughs that shook the bed and successfully wrenched Jason out of the grasp of sleep. Groggily, he sat up in bed and looked at the offending figure sitting on the edge of his bed, coughing merrily away.

"It's 2 in the morning." He reported grumpily, glancing at his clock. Dick had stopped his horrendous hacking and was now trying to catch his breath. "What the hell do you want?"

"Jase..." The older boy started to say before he began coughing again. Jason's sleep-addled brain slowly shook off the last dregs of his slumber, and a minute passed as he waited for Dick to stop hacking away. Then suddenly his brain was clear, and reality hit him like a boulder.

"Dick? What is it?" Dick shook his head as if to indicate that he couldn't talk, couldn't breathe for that matter. His coughing had stopped, but now he was sitting hunched over the edge of Jason's bed, panting as though he had just sprinted a mile.

"Dick? Dick!" He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder and was alarmed to find that he was trembling like a leaf in the wind.

"Jase... I... asthma..." Panic flooded Jason's system. Asthma? He didn't know Dick had asthma! Since when did the Golden Boy have asthma? And why was he looking for Jason and not Bruce or Alfred?

"Do you have your inhaler? Where is it?"

"Don't... know... thought it... may be with.... you...."

"Why would it be with me?!"

"I—" Dick's words cut off with a hard gasp, and he began coughing those horrible-sounding coughs again, the ones that made him sound like he was dying.

Now he was panicking. He needed to find Bruce.

"Stay here, I'm gonna get Bruce." He implored, trying to keep the shakiness out of his voice. This wasn't right, Dick couldn't just casually stumble into his room at 2am and die on him.

Bruce. Bruce would make everything ok.

He just had to find Bruce.

~

Bruce was making his way up to his room when a figure barrelled into him with all the might of a small truck.

"Oof!" He steadied himself and straighten up to see who it was that had knocked into him, only to find himself face to face with a frantic-looking Jason.

"Jason, what are you doing up?" He said sternly, taking note of the time on a nearby wall clock.

"Bruce! Come quick, it's Dick— as soon as the words left Jason's lips, Bruce was up and moving. Something must be terribly wrong for Jason to have come out of the dark, running like that. As they made for the boy's room, Jason explained himself, while trying to keep up with Bruce's long strides.

"He came into my room, woke me up. I think he's having an asthma attack..." they burst into the younger boy's room, and immediately, Bruce spotted Dick who was now lying curled in a foetal position on the bedspread, his body heaving with uneven breaths. Bruce settled down beside his oldest and placed a steady hand on his shoulder, wincing slightly when he felt the layer of clammy sweat that now coated the boy's arm.

"Dick?" He said gently. Dick's eyes were shut tight as he struggled to take each breath, and Bruce noticed with alarm that the kid's lips had taken in a startlingly blue cast. He wasn't getting enough oxygen, Bruce thought frantically. He needed a rescue inhaler. Dammit, Bruce couldn't remember where he placed his—

"Chum, where is your inhaler?" Dick cracked an eye open at his voice and then shook his head fretfully.

"Not... in... room... Jason... Tim..." He understood immediately. Dick couldn't find it in his room, which meant that it had to be with Jason or Tim. The two younger boys must have taken it, thinking that it was a toy of some sort.

Anger flared up in Bruce's chest as he rounded up on Jason, who recoiled at being at the receiving end of a full-on batglare.

"Did you take his inhaler?"

"No! I didn't! I didn't even know he has asthma, how can I take something I don't know he has?!" Jason argued right back, not backing down. It was true, he hadn't told any of Dick's brothers that he had asthma, Jason only came home with them 2 years ago, and Tim just came into the picture when he was 7, there was no way they could have known.... But this did not discount the fact that one of the boys could have taken Dick's inhaler by mistake, And if Jason didn't have it, then...

"Stay here with him, make sure he keeps breathing." Dick was wheezing heavily by now. He needed his inhaler, fast.

Bruce darted out of Jason's room and into the neighbouring one, Tim's room. The young boy stirred as he entered in a bluster, and sat up in bed as he started rooting around the boy's chest of drawers for any sign of the glow-in-the-dark inhaler.

"Bruce? What's going on...?"

"Tim, I need you to help me find Dick's inhaler. Do you know if you could have taken it by accident?"

The young boy stumbled out of bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Inhaler? You mean those sort of things that people with asthma use?"

"Yes."

"I haven't seen anythin' like it." The boy yawned, and then looked at Bruce, frowning. "Nuthin' like the one my friend has."

"Dick's one looks different from the one your friend has, Timmy. It looks like a thick blue pen, glows in the dark...?"

This caught the young boy's attention, "Glows in the dark? Uhmm... I have a pen that glows in the dark..."

"Where is it?" Bruce's heart skipped a beat when his son goes toddling over to his toy box and looked around for a bit, before pulling out a thick round canister that was glowing a fierce blue in the dimness of the room.

"Hand it to me, Tim. That's Dick's rescue inhaler." He said quickly, making the boy hurry over to give him the item. He barely registered the alarm on Tim's face before he's out of the room and making straight for Jason's.

"Rescue—!"

He went back into Jason's room, not caring that he left the door gaping wide open. Jason was sitting beside Dick on the bed, rubbing the older boy's back and face pinched with worry. Bruce's heart ached when he saw how pale his oldest was and how much pain he was in as he wheezed, completely unable to get a proper breath in.

 

"Dick, Dick, hey I have your inhaler. Here..." He inserted the mouth piece into Dick's mouth and depressed the button which expelled the medicated air into the boy's respiratory system. Dick sucked in the air, desperately, then fell back, breathing heavily. They waited for the medication to work, just in time for Bruce to hear a pair of small feet pad into the room.

"Bruce?" A small voice said. Fury rose up in his chest again, and he tried to press it down as he turned to the small figure in the doorway, his youngest son. Tim walked over to the group by the bed, looking terrified at the scene before him.

He had to grit his teeth as he said, "Why was his inhaler with you?"

"I didn't know it was an inhaler, I swear Bruce, " the young child quailed under Bruce's gaze, "I just found it... it was—"

"It was in Dick's room, wasn't it? Why did you take it, Tim, he could have died!" Now Bruce was mad. Tim trembled, clearly terrified. Tears sprang to the the eyes of the youngest as he struggled to process what Bruce just said.

"... He could have... oh god. Bruce, I'm sorry—"

He was just about to shout at his youngest again when a shaking hand landed on his arm. He followed the weak grip to his oldest, who was now breathing easier, although it still sounded too wheezy for Bruce's liking.

"Bruce... I remember now... left inhaler in ... reading room..." He glanced at his younger brother, who was looking at Bruce with trepidation. Dick used Bruce's arm to pull himself upright and sat for a while, still trying to catch his breath. He was breathing like he had just run a marathon but somehow managed to grab both his younger brothers and push them behind him, as if... oh. He was shielding them from Bruce.

"Not... their fault." They stayed like that for a while, with Dick still heaving each breath while blocking his two younger brothers from Bruce's wrath and Bruce now glaring down his oldest. The boy looked in bad shape, all clammy and sweaty from his ordeal, yet he was still trying to protect his siblings.

Bruce felt his anger abate slightly, and just in time because Dick was swaying dangerously while sitting there.

"Richard..." the boy crumpled as soon as the words left his mouth. Swiftly, Bruce caught the boy. He could feel the boy's body shaking in his arms as he still struggled to catch a breath. Clearly the inhaler wasn't enough. He needed to get proper medical attention if he was to go back to normal. Bruce sighed and gathered Dick up into his arms, looking at his two other sons. They still looked shocked at the whole ordeal.

"Tim, Jason." They jumped at his words, and Tim shrunk away from him slightly, as if afraid to be shouted at again. Bruce softened, standing with his oldest son in his arms.

"Sorry for shouting at you two. I didn't mean it, I was just very... angry. Are you two ok?"

"Mm-hmm." Mumbled Jason, and Tim nodded tentatively. Bruce sighed. He would have to make up for this later.

"Now, Dick needs our help. Do you two think you could help me find Alfred and come down to the Cave with him?"

The two boys perked up at the mention of the cave. He knew they never passed up on an opportunity to visit the only out of bounds part of the house. Sure enough, they set off on their mission as Bruce made his way downstairs, with a precious burden in his arms.

~

He was about to go to bed when there was a knock on his door.

"Alfred? Bruce said to come get you." He opened to door to see two of his youngest charges standing before his door in their bedclothes, both heads of dark hair rumpled and looking a little jumpy and scared. Immediately Alfred was alert, and stepping out of his room.

"Young masters. What happened that has both of you up so late at night?"

"Dick had an asthma attack, " Jason said seriously while Tim sniffled slightly, rubbing his face on his sleeve. The two boys were holding hands, something they only did when one or both of them were scared. And they usually did it with Dick, and not with each other. But it seems now that the latter was not around to offer them support and comfort....

"Master Richard has taken ill with an asthma attack? That's odd, He hasn't had one in years." Which was true. The boy last had an attack approximately 3 years ago. What could have set it off this time?

"Bruce said to go down with you to the Cave." Tim spoke up, sounding a little scared. Alfred picked up on this, and wondered what could have caused it. Perhaps seeing his older brother in a state...? But it didn't seem like the only thing that had rattled little Timothy.

"Alright, let us be on our way then. Your brother needs us." With that, he swept the two boys under his wing and they made their way towards the study where the elevator to the Cave was.

~

Bruce lowered the shaking body of his precious charge onto the bed in the med bay and began setting up equipment to monitor the boy's vitals. He could tell immediately that the boy was not getting enough oxygen, his SpO2 was tanking in the mid 80s, a dangerous sign. But he needed Alfred to come and make his call before he administered anything to his child. To be honest, he was never very good with illnesses. Alfred was the true expert, Bruce was only good at the researching part, where he delved deep into searching the rogue particles of what had gone wrong with the whole chain reaction.

Speaking if things going wrong, he remembered hearing Dick coughing just now, when he was replenishing his items in the store area. Perhaps it was the dust that triggered this attack. Not possible, Dick was around musty and dusty places often during their investigations, He never displayed any discomfort with that, nor did any of it result in an attack this bad. Perhaps it was something else... He needed to analyse that air, asap.

He strapped on an oxygen mask to his son, and switched on the oxygen concentrator before hurrying away to get a sample of the air in the store area. When he stepped in, He immediately noticed there was a mustiness to it, but it wasn't as bad a some of the places they had been to in their investigations.

After collecting a sample, He hurried back to med bay to check on his son. The boy was now lying on the bed, wheezing. His heart ached at the sound of his pain-filled breaths, and he manuvered the boy into a sitting position to help ease the pressure on his lungs. It seemed to help slightly. At that moment, Alfred arrived with Jason and Tim following closely behind.

“What appears to be the problem sir?” He asked as he immediately took to examining his patient on the bed. Dick put up with the elder man’s ministrations without protest, which was worrying because he’d never known Dick to enjoy these physical examinations, no matter who they were being done by.

“He had a severe asthma attack, we belatedly were able to get him on his rescue inhaler, but it seems that it’s not over yet.”

Alfred nodded at his diagnosis, and whipped out a stethoscope to listen to Dick’s chest. “It seems that his airways have not quite opened up, despite the medication. Have you started him on the nebuliser?”

“Not yet. I wanted you down here to make the call.”

“Start him on one albuterol nebuliser. We have a couple in stock, if I remember correctly.”

“Always.” Ever since finding out that Dick had asthma back when he was eight and had taken ill with a particularly bad attack, the Batcave was always stocked with albuterol nebulisers, in case an incident like that ever arose again. Thankfully, nothing of similar nature had occurred since then, and they’d only needed to use the nebulisers during particularly bad bouts of flu and illnesses, and all had been before Dick reached puberty.

That was, until today.

Bruce did as Alfred instructed, casting a quick glance towards his two other frightened looking sons who watched worriedly as their surrogate father and grandfather hurried around, tending to the eldest. And with Dick barely conscious, there was no one to offer the two boys comfort of any sort.

“Here.” Alfred accepted the nebuliser without another word and hooked Dick up to it. Within minutes of administering the medication, Dick’s breathing hitched and started to ease, thank God. The wheezing was starting to scare Bruce as well, he could barely imagine how his younger sons felt, watching their brother suffer like that. He pulled both of them close as they watched Alfred fuss around Dick, changing the position of his bed so that he was permanently elevated to almost 90˚ and adjusting the monitors around the bed.

“Anything else we can do, Alfred?” Bruce said as the butler finally stepped back, as if admiring his handiwork.

“Not much else now, I’m afraid, sir. Now we just wait until his lungs respond to the treatment.”

“Okay.” He noted that Dick was stirring slightly, and sat down beside the boy, calling out. “Dick. Dick can you hear me?”

The boy’s eyes scrunched and blinked open, looking clouded and dazed.

“Dick, you there?”

After a beat, the boy nodded, clearly still a little out of it.

“How do you feel now? Your breathing, I mean.”

“… Better… what … Did you… do…”

“Got you on the nebulisers, chum. Now, all you gotta do is breathe ok? Try to breathe as deeply as you can, and as much as you can, without hyperventilating, alright?” Dick perked up at his last shrewd comment.

“Did… you just… make… a joke?”

“I was being serious, son. Breathe, don’t stop breathing ok?”

“Okay…”

He turned to Alfred, looking past his other two sons, “I think he will be alright now. Call me if I’m needed. I need to analyse some samples of air. I believe that Dick may have breathed in some sort of special irritant that triggered the onset of this attack.”

“Bruce?” Jason spoke up, the first words he had spoken the entire time. “can we stay here with Dick?”

He levelled a gaze at both boys, and saw determination on their faces.

“Alright. Just as long as you both promise to go to bed and not bother him. He needs rest now.”

Both boys nodded. Bruce left Alfred to settle the two boys to bed while he made for his desk. He had an analysis to run.

~

Several tests later confirmed his thoughts on the irritant. There were trace amounts of Ivy’s pollen in the air of the store room. This was not any ordinary pollen, it was one of her newer concoctions, which Bruce got doused in a few weeks ago when he faced off with her alone, without Dick as Dick had been on a mission with the team at that time. It was a strain of pollen Dick hadn’t been exposed to yet, which explained why he had such a strong reaction to it. When the butler woke, he would have to see to it that the man decontaminates the store and preferably while wearing a gas mask. Who knew what effects this pollen could have, even on a normal, healthy adult?

Sure, it hadn’t triggered anything in Batman when he fought Ivy that week, but if it could trigger such a bad attack in his son, then it had to have something to it.

Bruce sighed as he closed his laptop, rubbing at his eyes. If all went well with the nebuliser, he may not even have to synthesise an antidote to the pollen. Hopefully Dick responds well to the treatment, or else it was back to square one.

Speaking of Dick...

He walked over to the medbay of the cave, and looks past the door way. At his son. The boy’s breathing seemed much easier now, after 2 hours on the albuterol. His sats were also in the high 90s now, a good sign. Seeing that 86% blinking at him had really terrified Bruce, as little as he would like to admit it. It seems like the treatment was working…

His eyes drifted to his two other sons who were sharing a cot beside their older brother. The two had already drifted off to sleep a while ago, but Tim’s hand was still loosely interlocked with Dick’s, hanging over the gap between their beds, and Jason’s hand was inches away as well, almost touching his brothers’ hands.

Bruce smiled at the sight. He turned away and went up the stairs, stretching as he went.

Time for bed.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in literally 8 hours. I got inspiration from a comment on my other fic (Thank you CeliaBeth for the push in the right direction) and decided to bite the bullet and write out the whole thing. It is now 2am in the morning and I'm literally running off fumes typing this thing. I will definitely come back and revise this fic when I can, but until then, please enjoy the fruits of my labour.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! And leave some kudos if you love yourself some Hurt/Sick Dick as well. You'd think we'd have enough of that around here but nooooo you can never have enough Hurt/Sick Dick yo


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